The Second Victory, page 19
“You bastard, Huber! You cruel, dirty bastard! I trusted you. I tried to help you—and that’s the muck you fling in my face. Be damned to you! Get your man up here and let me question him. After that you can run your hospital without help from me.”
The big Tyrolese did not move. He sat slumped in his chair, staring at his hands. It was a long time before he raised his head. When he did so, Hanlon saw that his eyes were misty and his face was suddenly aged. The words came out, stumbling and strangely penitent:
“I—I have said an unforgivable thing…a malicious joke. I am humiliated by what has happened here, with my own people. I am ashamed of my own part in it, so I try to shame you too. I destroy at one stroke a friendship that is precious to me. I am sorry—God only knows how sorry!”
With a sudden weary gesture he put his head down on his arms and slumped forward over the desk. Hanlon stood looking down at him with cold, bitter eyes. His words cracked like a lash over the lolling head:
“I came in friendship, Huber. I came to build, not destroy, to co-operate, and not to rule. What did I get? Murder, cheating, lying, insult. I’m tired of it. I’ve had enough!”
Slowly Huber raised his head and looked at him, haggardly. His voice was flat and weary.
“That’s the trouble, Hanlon. We’re all tired. We don’t think straight any more. I’m tired of living with all this misery, sick to death of my own helplessness against it. I’m tired of patching bodies that are wrecked beyond repair, tired of preaching a hope I know is a lie, tired of begging for drugs and instruments, sick of the butchery I have to do without them. I can’t unsay what I’ve said, but please believe I’m sorry for it.”
He stood up and faced Hanlon across the desk. Then he held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation Hanlon took it and they looked at each other, shamefaced as schoolboys, until a slow smile broke over Huber’s drawn face.
“Nobody believes she’s your mistress. And they resent the fact that she isn’t. They’re afraid of saints, and celibates are dangerous men. We’re a primitive folk. We like our rulers comfortably drunk and happily bedded. They‘re easier to manage.”
“I’m a romantic,” said Hanlon with a crooked urchin grin. “I’m still crying for the moon. I want a lover more than a mistress.”
Huber’s big hands waved away this Celtic folly.
“The moon is cold, my friend. But if a woman is warm in bed you are already halfway to love.”
On that tart little tagline they were friends again, and they bent themselves to the business in hand: the tracing of stolen drugs and the search for the man behind the gun.
Karl Adalbert Fischer sat under the wine-stained map, with its drooping, melancholy flags, and contemplated his own dubious future. Spring was breaking out all over the mountains, but he was still sunk in a sullen winter of anxiety and disillusion.
His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth was stale with liquor and his body spent from the passion of the night before. He was getting too old for lechery, but the drive of habit was still strong, and hope died more slowly than the loveless ecstasy.
He had spent last night with Gretl Metzger. She had telephoned him late in the afternoon, with the news that there would be no further supplies from the hospital, and that her boy friend was in daily fear of discovery.
Fischer had gone to see her. She had wept and railed and threatened so that, in sheer weariness, he had had to take her. She had sobbed on his breast and sworn that she would never betray him; but when she had fallen asleep he had lain awake for hours, staring into the darkness, knowing that when the inquisitors came she would tell everything.
That they would come, he had no doubt at all. What he must do was equally clear to him. He must smile and submit and answer no questions until they brought him to trial, when, with luck and a good lawyer, he might assume the character of a martyr, a man driven to petty crime by loyalty to his family and his country. It would make a good case. The Press might even build it into a famous one.
The Occupying Powers were in a neat dilemma. They preached democracy and the right of fair trial. In practice they were committed to local autocracy and a doubtful legality in the processes of justice.
He was more troubled about his nephew than about himself. The boy was very near the end of his treatment. Freedom was just around the corner. It would be sweet sarcasm to send him away now. Time was against it, and circumstances too. But somehow a way must be found.
He tilted himself back in the chair, put his feet on the table and lit another cigarette.
Before it was halfway smoked there was a knock on the door and Father Albertus came in.
Fischer swung his legs off the table and stood up to greet him. The old man waved aside the formalities of greeting and came straight to the point.
“I saw your nephew this afternoon, Karl.”
“The devil you did!” Fischer stared at him, irritated and bewildered. “But I told the young fool to stay inside the house.”
“He did, Karl. I met him by chance. I was making the visitation of the parish, and it brought me to Winkler’s house!’
“Oh…” It was a long-drawn sigh of relief. “For a moment you had me frightened, Father.”
Fischer was smiling now, but the face of the old priest was grim. He said crisply:
“There is nothing more Winkler can do for him. I am taking him away from there.”
“What?”
Father Albertus faced him with stubborn dignity.
“The boy is almost healed in body; but in mind he is sick, near to despair. Winkler cannot help him, being so near to damnation himself. I propose to take Johann into my own house and care for him.”
Fischer looked at him stupidly, fumbling for words.
“You mean you would dare…”
“For a wandering soul,” said Father Albertus simply, “a priest should dare anything. Besides, the sanctuary of the Church is a better protection than you or Winkler can give him.”
Fischer shook his head and smiled regretfully.
“There is no sanctuary now, Father. This is the twentieth century, the Secular state. The church has no immunity any more.”
“Perhaps God may supply what the State refuses,” said the old man mildly. “In any case, I am taking him. Tonight, after dark, I shall bring him down to my place. He can stay there until he is cured, in body and in spirit.”
“And then…?”
“Then he will make up his mind what to do.”
Fischer eased himself slowly back into his chair; then suddenly he began to laugh. The old priest watched him, frowning.
“Perhaps you should tell me the joke too, Karl.”
Karl Adalbert Fischer stopped laughing and waved him irritably to a chair. Then, quite dispassionately, he told him.
The old priest listened intently till the story was finished, then he leaned back in his chair, joined his hands fingertip to fingertip and stared musingly at the policeman. His first words were characteristic.
“There is hope for you yet, my friend.”
Fischer shrugged and shook his head.
“There’s no hope, believe me. I shall be arrested this evening.”
“I was not thinking of that,” said Father Albertus mildly. “I was remembering that, for the first time for many years, you have done an unselfish act, at considerable cost to yourself. That is the real hope.”
Fischer cocked a sardonic eyebrow at the old cleric.
“You think you’ll get me to confession, Father?”
“I’d like to get you to heaven,” said Father Albertus with a sudden smile. “That might be less difficult.”
“Get the boy out safely,” Fischer told him sourly. “That’s the big thing.”
“No, Karl. The big thing is to give him hope and a goal. The rest is unimportant.”
A wintry admiration showed in Fischer’s canny eyes.
“You priests will never learn, will you?”
“It depends on the lesson, Karl.”
“And what would you have me learn, Father? I’m an old dog. I don’t take kindly to new tricks.”
“It’s the oldest lesson in the book.” The priest stood up, ready to go. He paused a moment, then quoted softly:
“ ‘Vanitas vanitatum…’ Vanity of vanities, Karl. Everything is vanity but the love of God and the love of His creatures.”
It was a timely thought, but a bitter one. Karl Adalbert Fischer was still chewing on it when Captain Johnson came with two soldiers to place him under arrest.
Rudi Winkler was returning from his walk. He had made the circuit of the town and the lower promenades and now he was retracing his steps, thinking cheerfully of the prospect of a beer in the Goldener Hirsch and a warm bath when he reached his house.
He was tired but relaxed, and he walked slowly, whistling a drinking song and inhaling the last pine-scented warmth of the day. The shadows were lengthening and the shopkeepers were putting up their shutters, but the long winding street was strangely active.
Little groups of promenaders strolled along the narrow footpaths and spilled over on to the roadway. Others stood in the doorways of the shops, talking in low voices.
At first he was hardly aware of them, lapped as he was in a pleasant weariness and in his habitual self-contemplation. Then the strangeness struck him. The time was late for strollers. These were not townsfolk. They looked different; their faces were odd and angular, their eyes hostile, their skin sallow and unhealthy. Their voices were odd too, soft and secretive, tinged with unfamiliar accents. They did not walk freely as the mountain folk did, but shambled, almost furtively, with bent shoulders and heads thrust forward.
Winkler began to be uneasy. He quickened his step, striding out more strongly, looking neither to right nor to left.
The strollers reacted immediately to his change of pace. Those in the doorways stepped out on to the footpath and began to walk steadily in the same direction, keeping pace with Winkler so that they formed a human screen between him and the safety of the doorways.
Those behind strung out in line abreast across the roadway, cutting off his retreat. He dared not look back, but he heard the measured tramp of their feet. Then they began to chant and the beat was in time with the thudding rhythm of their boots—“Butcher! Butcher! Butcher!”
Panic seized him and he began to run, panting and stumbling, up the cobbled road. The others began to run too, not bothering to catch him, but dogging his tracks, outflanking him. They were still chanting, breathlessly but insistently, so that the sound drummed into his ears in a crescendo of terror.
Faster he ran and faster, up the slope that led to the open square where there was usually a policeman on duty. Then he realised that before he reached the square he must cross the bridge over the tumbling waterfall. When he turned the corner he saw it.
Each parapet was lined with lean scarecrow figures, and the exit was blocked by another double rank. Hope died in him and he stopped running. His pursuers stopped too. He stood, motionless in a wide square of people—skeleton faces, scarecrow limbs, dead, hating eyes.
They watched him, silently, as he turned this way and that, looking for a way of escape. They saw his mouth open and heard his scream. Then, without haste, they began to move in on him.
Five minutes later a torn and bloody bundle was hoisted above the heads of the crowd and flung over the parapet. They watched it tossing and leaping in the torrent, then they turned away and shambled back towards the Bella Vista.
The police had refused duty after the arrest of Karl Fischer and Mark Hanlon’s troops had not yet arrived to picket the town.
It was seven in the evening before the news of Winkler’s murder reached Occupation Headquarters. More than a dozen people had seen it happen, from shop fronts and upper windows. Some had telephoned the police, but authority had collapsed, and none was prepared to apply to the Occupying Power.
Miller, the American, was the first to come at the truth. When his inmates returned, half-scared, half-gloating, the news spread quickly through the wards, and a white-faced nurse came hurrying to the Director’s office to tell him the news.
He had acted quickly. All patients were confined to the hospital and a detachment of troops had been called to picket the entrances. Then Miller had driven up to the Sonnblick to make his report.
Hanlon heard him out in silence, approved his prompt action and then settled down to question him closely.
“The name first—you’re sure it was Winkler?”
“No doubt of it.” Miller assured him in his flat drawl. “I got it from half a dozen witnesses. ‘Butcher’ Winkler they called him. He’d served in two camps, Dachau and Mauthausen. Anyway, you’ll be able to identify him when you recover the body.”
“I doubt it,” said Hanlon with dry distaste. “From what you’ve told me, they must have torn him to ribbons. How many of your people were involved?”
“Upwards of fifty.”
“Can you identify a leader?”
Miller shook his head doubtfully.
“No. I’m not sure we’d be wise to try.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was a collective act. A scapegoat gives it a different character. It’s easier to handle this way, easier to hush up.”
Hanlon gave him a swift, shrewd look.
“What makes you think I want to hush it up?”
“You’ve got no choice,” Miller told him. “It’s justice of a sort—rough justice if you want—but neither your Headquarters nor mine will want to make a song and dance about it.”
“They can’t have it both ways,” said Hanlon abruptly. “You can’t have the courts for some and lynch law for the others. It’s a negation of everything we’re trying to do here.”
“I agree,” said Miller with a sour grin, “but I’m talking from experience: this isn’t the first case I’ve seen. There were others, much worse. All of them were hushed up quietly. They’ll do it with this one too.”
“This is an area of British jurisdiction,” said Hanlon tartly. “I think my people will take a different view.”
“I wouldn’t bank on it. There’s a Four-Power policy involved. Besides, there’s a practical point. What are you going to do with fifty DPs? Give them a collective trial and a collective sentence? Hand a readymade propaganda piece to the Russians and the Old Guard? Better bury Winkler and the case too.”
“I’ll have to make a report on it,” said Hanlon stiffly, “and ask Klagenfurt for a directive. I’ll send someone down to take depositions and a list of participants. I’d like you to make facilities available.”
“Happy to help,” Miller told him casually. Then his scrawny neck jutted forward and his lined face became unusually grave. “Don’t misunderstand me, Hanlon. I know your views and the situation here. I’m just trying to save you some embarrassment.”
Hanlon grinned lopsidedly and made a small shrugging gesture of helplessness.
“I’m embarrassed already. I’ve just arrested Fischer and the police are on strike.”
“The hell you have!” Miller threw back his head and laughed. “What’s the charge?”
“Receiving stolen goods. Concealment of a criminal. Accessory after the fact in a murder case.”
“Think you’ll make them stick?”
“Not all of them. My intelligence team is sweating him out now. This Winkler business will help them and me.”
“What’s the connection?”
“That’s what I’m waiting to find out. I’ve sent Johnson to search Winkler’s house and pull in his housekeeper. If she talks, as I hope she will, I’ll confront Fischer with her and see what we get.”
Miller stood up and held out his hand.
“I wish you luck, Hanlon. And a smooth passage with Klagenfurt!”
“To hell with Klagenfurt!”
“To hell with the whole lousy mess. I’d like to go home.”
“Wouldn’t we all?”
It was one of the clichés of the Service and Hanlon tossed it off lightly enough. But the truth was quite different. He had no home to go to, and he was too near to triumph to want it, anyway.
Karl Adalbert Fischer was sweating under the lamps.
They had him propped in a chair in a cellar room of the Sonnblick, with lights glaring in his face and the steam heater turned up to full pressure a foot from his back, while three stony-faced interrogators hammered him with questions, hour after hour.
It was a technique familiar to him and he counted on his years of experience to turn it into a harmless if wearisome ritual. For the first two hours he had done very well. He had stepped round the pitfalls and shrugged off the traps with the bland derision of a man who knows them all by heart.
Then, slowly, the strain began to tell. His clothes became sodden with sweat, his mouth dried out, his fingers twitched, his eyes burned and his head buzzed painfully under the dull repetitive impact of the voices. He had to clamp his mouth shut to stop screaming aloud. He tried vainly to close his ears and withdraw into a state of selfhypnosis, but the lights blazed and the voices drummed on and on so that he wished, in spite of himself, to tell them everything and be done with it.
Then, surprisingly, the inquisition stopped. The lights were switched off. They gave him coffee and a plate of sandwiches and talked genially and casually while he ate them. Then they gave him a cigarette and let him smoke it through to the end, while they reasoned with him like an equal.
The telephone rang and one of the men answered it. Fischer pricked up his ears, but all he heard was the indistinct crackle of the receiver and a non-committal series of answers. The interrogator put down the receiver and turned to him with a smile.
“You’re a lucky man, Fischer. That was Colonel Hanlon. We’re going to release you.”
Fischer looked at him, stunned.
“What did you say?”
“We’re going to release you. There’s no case.”
A warm wave of comfort swept over Fischer’s body. He had won. He had told them nothing. He would emerge from this brief ordeal with added prestige and added power. He asked for another cigarette and they gave it to him without question. When he came to light it his hands were trembling violently, but one of the inquisitors leaned forward courteously and snapped a lighter. They poured him another cup of coffee and began gathering up their papers in the shamefaced fashion of men who have finished a distasteful task.
